Bloodstained Beauty
by SydneyLouWho
Summary: The last breaths of Maysilee Donner occurred in a candy-colored wonderland, a sickly sweet place that was both awe-inspiring and deadly. It was ironic, really, to have such a beautiful place be so deadly. Written for Lils and the Caesar's Palace Secret Santa fic exchange.


**For Lils, merry Christmas (a bit late) and I hope you had a lovely New Year.**

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_prompts: Dreamland ― 'Life is only precious because it ends. You don't know how lucky you are' ― iridescence ― shattered hearts_

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The last breaths of Maysilee Donner occurred in a candy-colored wonderland, a sickly sweet place that was both awe-inspiring and deadly. It was ironic, really, to have such a beautiful place be so deadly.

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When she'd first entered the arena, knees shaking and fists balled so tightly that it drew blood from crescent-shaped imprints on her palms, she'd been so afraid of what awaited her, but something else had accompanied the fear.

_Wonder_.

No matter how scared she was of the other victors, she couldn't keep her eyes off of the lime-colored trees or the robin's egg sky or the candy-colored flowers that littered the sky. None of it looked real and she began to wonder if she was dreaming.

Maysilee listened to the countdown, but it sounded far away. She ran on autopilot, toward the cornucopia, grabbing a poison dart blowgun with one hand, but everything was hazy and unreal.

She soon realized that this was the Capitol's intention, to capture them all in such a state of awe that they'd forget what they'd been sent to the arena for. It would allow the quickest to recover to kill the slowest. It was survival of the fittest.

Snapping out of her haze, she noticed that one of her district partner, a dark-haired Seam boy whose name she'd already forgotten, was pinned to the ground, a muscular girl perched on top of him, knife to his neck and a sick smile on her face. She barely knew the boy, only having met him after the reaping, but he was from her district and she couldn't just let him die in the bloodbath. She brought the blowgun to her lips and, in one small exhale, the girl fell to the ground, limp.

That was the good thing about her weapon of choice; there was no blood, no mess. It was as if the girl had just fallen asleep.

The boy looked too stunned to move, so she grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet, dragging him to the woods. He stared at her, his dark eyes cloudy with confusion.

The question hung heavy in the air. _Why?_ She waited for the word to escape his lips, but it never did. Instead, he said, "well, you're an idiot."

"What?"

"You could've killed us both right there and raised the odds for yourself, but you saved me. You must be an idiot."

She rolled her eyes. "I expected at least a _thank you_."

"For drawing out my death for a couple more days? Thanks." He laughed, a short, humorless laugh.

"Why don't you kill me right now, then? You're bigger than me, you're older than me. I'd bet it would take thirty seconds for me to be dead on the ground."

He shrugged. "Fair enough. So you wanna be allies? I heard there's strength in numbers and we could always just split up if the numbers get low."

She stared at him, considering. He was eighteen and tall and she was fifteen and small-framed. The pros outweighed the cons, so she agreed.

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She never would've guessed that, in a little more than a week, her blood would stain his clothes and hands as he held onto her dying body or that she would become a face in his nightmares after his victory. She couldn't have imagined that she'd spend years in his brain, haunting him, the source of his tears; she was to be the first in a large pile of corpses that eventually accumulated in Haymitch's mind and a long line of people to shatter his heart, even if her death left only a small crack.

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Maysilee had always just assumed that, when the time came, she'd send a poison dart in Haymitch's direction, but by the time there were only a few more tributes left, she couldn't bring herself to lift her hand. They parted ways silently, neither able to admit that they cared for the other, even in a platonic way.

That's when she heard the birds.

Their squawking pierced the air and sent a chill down Maysilee's spine. She couldn't tell where the noise was coming from; it seemed to be both far away and nearby, nowhere and everywhere at the same time. She raised the blowgun to her lips, ready.

The first bird appeared behind her and a he spun around to face it. Its head cocked to the side as it studied her. It was bubblegum pink and slightly resembled a flamingo; really, it was beautiful and didn't look at all dangerous, but Maysilee wasn't stupid. She bolted in the opposite direction, away from the creature, but another waited for her at the edge of the clearing. Everywhere she looked there were pink feathers.

As the birds came nearer, she noticed their eyes. Like jewels, they seemed to reflect light, to glow in a rainbow of colors. They were mesmerizing and, for a moment, Maysilee forgot the dart gun in her hand.

Feeling a beak tugging at the back of her shirt snapped her back to reality, though, and a dart lodged itself in the beast's feathery neck. It looked shocked for a moment, but the poison had no real effect on it; the Capitol must've made it to be immune to her poison.

"Shit."

Helpless, she began to kick the birds with her heavy boots, but there were just too many of them and they were closing in on her; their iridescent eyes seemed to be mocking her fruitless efforts to ward them off.

"Haymitch! Haymitch, please! Please help!" she cried, but either he couldn't hear her or he was choosing to ignore her, because there was no reply, but she continued to call him, tears falling from her eyes. Their razor-blade beaks ripped her skin, piece by piece, and she wondered why she was still struggling.

Eventually, in what felt like hours but was likely only minutes, he appeared out of the trees to shoo the birds away, but it was too late; blood mixed with her tears, which stained the soft green grass.

"No," was the word that escaped his lips as he knelt beside her. She looked at him with the eye that hadn't been pecked blind.

The world was red and she was shaking, but her thoughts were still clear, memories flooding her brain.

She could remember when her grandfather had died and how her mother stroked her hair as she sobbed. "Life is only precious because it ends, my darling," she'd said in a soft voice. Maysilee wasn't sure she'd understood those words until then, as her lifeline frayed quickly.

She remembered her sister and how they'd fought dragons together in the backyard, how they'd laughed and cried and loved each other, even when they hated each other. Somehow, she knew that Mirabel would never fully recover.

She remembered the warm, strong arms of her father and the smell of her mother's perfume and the sparkling blue eyes of the boy next door. These were the memories that she was leaving behind.

Haymitch held her hand in his hands and, somehow, she felt content, as if she was ready to die. She hoped that, at least, Haymitch could win the games, that he could bring a bit of wealth to their district, to her family.

_You don't know lucky you are._ The words were desperate to be said to the cloudy-eyed boy that held her hand, but they got lost behind her bloody lips.

She looked above her and wondered if she was looking at the real sky and if each tree had the same number of perfectly-shaped leaves.

An imaginary smile formed on her lips as she breathed in the robin's egg sky and the world turned to white.

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**I'm really sorry if this isn't what you wanted, Lils, but I hope you enjoyed reading it a little bit. Again, I hope you had a wonderful Christmas/New Year.**


End file.
